Abertoir 2017: Final Despatches

Yes, it's all over for another year, and Mrs Probert & I are still recovering from six fabulous days of giallo in both literature & film (yes those are genuine gialli paperbacks behind us):

...cocktails (this one is The Killer Must Drink Again, a mix of grenadine, orange juice and OF COURSE, J&B)...:

...giallo cake...(yes CAKE): 

...piss poor attempts at David Hemmings impersonations in front of paintings from classic Italian movies...:

 ...scary fridges...

...at the Metropol to watch Lamberto Bava's DEMONS (1985)...

 ...at the 'Opera' to watch Dario Argento's OPERA (1987):

...trying out for the sequel to THE WITCH (2015 which we saw at Abertoir before all the hype, thank goodness):

...and of course having a splendid time in the Abertoir screening room (Helena Markos kindly gave Mrs Probert the week off from the academy provided she made it clear she was studying there):

The final two films of the festival were two of the best films I have seen all year, & I don't doubt I'll be writing about them again at my traditional Top Ten round up on Boxing Day. First up was:

THE LODGERS (2017)

        Director Brian O'Malley's follow up to 2014's LET US PREY is a superb gothic ghost story set in the rural Ireland of 1920. Twins Rachel (Charlotte Vega) and Edward (Bill Milner) live in an isolated, crumbing gothic mansion and are safe as long as they follow the rules set down in a bizarre nursery rhyme by the 'other' occupants of the house. 
        Exactly what these are, and what is going on, is revealed in a climax that is a creative as it is nightmarish, and I would be spoiling it for you if I said any more, suffice to say if you like subtle, original, beautifully directed (some of the 2.35:1 widescreen compositions are breathtaking) ghost stories this is your movie of 2017 to watch. 

        The director was in attendance, & we got to chat with him afterwards. Mr O'Malley cited influences such as Jack Clayton's THE INNOCENTS (1961), Alejandro Amenabar's THE OTHERS (2001) and J A Bayona's THE ORPHANAGE (2007). I am sure that in the future THE LODGERS will be grouped with those classics. Seriously excellent stuff.



TOP KNOT DETECTIVE (2017)

        The only way you can successfully follow one of the best horror films of the year is with the best comedy of the year. TOP KNOT DETECTIVE was a wonderful way to end Abertoir. 
        A SPINAL TAP-type mockumentary documenting the 'classic' ie raving mad TV show of the title, aka DEDUCTIVE REASONING RONIN (translated from the Japanese), the film charted the success and downfall of the show and it's lunatic creator / writer / director and star Takashi Takamoto who was utterly terrible at all those tasks and became a huge star. 
        Talking head pieces, 'news' footage, and of course, lots and lots of clips of the brilliantly awful 'show' made this the funniest film I have seen in years. Full marks to writer-directors Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce for creating something that's going to be getting several rewatches here as soon as it comes out on disc.

        And that's it for another year! My sincere thanks to Gaz Bailey, Nia Edwards-Behi and Rhys Thomas Fowler for organisation that was second to none and which exhibited a degree of creativity likely to remain unsurpassed until next time; plus all the new friends we made and the old friends we got to meet again, including 'Gialli' the wonder dog. We had the best time. Normal service will recommence with my next review but right now we're still buzzing.

The Fabulous Festival that is Abertoir takes place every November in windswept Aberystwyth. I'll be publicising next year's closer to the time. But only after Mrs Probert & I have secured our passes. 

Abertoir Despatches Part 2

        Yes, Mrs Probert & I are still here in the land of the classic giallo (even the poster is yellow - isn't that great?) when we're not watching the brand new pictures the festival has to offer. At the moment we are still recovering from Friday night's traditional Abertoir off-site screening. This was the first time we had been able to attend one of these, as the previous two years were cancelled due to rain, more rain, typhoons and gales. This year however, the gods smiled, and the Abertoir audience were treated to:

Dario Argento's OPERA (1987) in an opera house!

        Well, actually the Ceredigion Museum, but as you can hopefully see from the picture it was the perfect location in which to enjoy what is arguably Mr Argento's final masterpiece, complete with plastic ravens being thrown at the audience from above during a crucial scene. Twenty minutes in & I was thinking what a fantastic film-maker he really is. Twenty minutes from the end and I wasn't the only one wondering quite how things could all suddenly turn so spectacularly daft. 

And that wasn't all.

        Upon leaving the venue, we and our festival colleagues were set upon by a steel-masked Michele Soavi lookalike who insisted we accept tickets to a private showing of a Lamberto Bava classic:

        Yes we ended up at the 'Metropol' cinema in Aberystwyth for a showing of DEMONS (1985), complete with red-haired usherette, bricked up exits, and a helicopter crashing through the roof (well not quite, but the Abertoir team tried to arrange that last bit & bravo to them for even considering it.) Quite possibly the most entertaining night's double bill I have ever had the pleasure to enjoy, I have to give full marks to the Abertoir team for making this a memorable life experience for everyone who attended. 

And now, back to some of the new stuff. Here are some more highlights:

CANARIES (2017)

         I liked this a lot when I saw it at Frightfest earlier this year, and if anything I found a second viewing even more enjoyable. A hugely impressive science fiction comedy produced on a budget of £29 000 and filmed mainly in the Welsh village of Lower Cwmtwrch, CANARIES is terrific fun and it deserves to do well.

DIANI & DEVINE MEET THE APOCALYPSE (2016)

        An utterly charming post-apocalypse movie starring, written and directed by comedy duo Gabriel Diane and Etta Devine. When something catastrophic happens in Los Angeles, our heroes hit the road along with their dog Watson and cat Mrs Peel. Along the way they encounter estate agents, cannibal cults and there's even a dance routine. In the light-hearted spirit of horror comedies like Kyle Rankin's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEB (2015) this was an unexpected delight and means I now have to seek out their 2011 comedy THE SELLING.

THE ENDLESS (2017)

        Two brothers who have escaped a 'UFO Suicide Cult' return after ten years to find that things are even stranger than they realised. This one's from the directors of SPRING (2014) which made one of my year's top ten lists. They also made the weird, complex, reality-bending RESOLUTION (2012), which THE ENDLESS is kind of a sequel to. I'm not going to go into details but if you watch this, make sure you have plenty of time free afterwards to consider what it might have been about. Possibly a Lovecraftian cosmic horror piece, possibly a comment about religion in general, possibly a film about the nature of film itself (and a viewer's interaction with the medium), like RESOLUTION this asks more questions than it answers. Definitely worth a look. 

Abertoir Despatches Part 1

        Yes, once again I'm back in Aberystwyth at the International Horror Festival of Wales, and what a wonderful festival it is - six glorious days of films, interviews and performance set against the violent, passionate climatic conditions that the Welsh coast is heir to. Will the police stop us getting back to our hotel because of 'dangerous 90mph gales that are blowing wheelie bins into the windows of buildings' this year?

We shall see.

        Abertoir is always a mix of the retro and the you'll-not-see-this-anywhere-else. This year the main theme is giallo and on Tuesday we were treated to big screen showings of Sergio Martino's YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY and ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK, sandwiching a lengthy on-stage interview with the great man himself. 
        One of the great attractions of Abertoir for us is the themed cocktails. Here I am with Mrs Probert & our friend Alan Hoare (thanks to Merlyn Roberts for taking the picture) enjoying The Killer Must Drink Again (J&B, Grenadine and Orange Juice) and The Red Queen (J&B and Red Vermouth). Oh yes, all this year's cocktails have J&B in them, and J&B are sponsoring the festival - hurrah!

        My intention with these despatches is that, rather than write about films I've banged on about before, I'm going to flag up the new movies shown at the festival that are worth looking out for. So here we go, starting with:

VAMPIRE CLAY (2017)

        Coming across as a blend of the graphic novel horror of Junji Ito and the special effects lunacy of Screaming Mad George, here we have the tale of a lady who runs an academy for prospective students who want to apply for the prestigious Tokyo Art College. Unfortunately she digs up a bag full of clay that happens to be the mortal remains of an insane sculptor whose final piece was a clay boy made out of the man's own blood. The clay exhibits vampiric tendencies and is soon turning the academy students into pliable fleshy lumps. Deliriously creative despite not always successfully treading the razor blade's edge between utterly horrific and ludicrously daft, VAMPIRE CLAY deserves points for getting enough things right that it's definitely worth a look.

MON MON MON MONSTERS (2017)

        The title on the poster translates as REPORT TO THE TEACHER! STRANGE STRANGE MONSTER! which I think is still better than the Western (?) release title of this picture from Taiwan. Lin She-Wei (Deng You-Kai) is constantly bullied at school by both teachers and students. When he has to do community service with three of his tormentors, they end up capturing one of two female flesh-eating ghouls who are terrorising the city. They tie her up and torture her, extracting teeth and blood to do terrible things to, amongst others, one of their teachers. Lin tries to make friends with the creature, but is he sincere or is he just another kind of bully?
      Relentlessly nihilistic in its view of schoolchildren and humanity in general, the movie does not so much ask the question 'Who are the real monsters?' than ram 'Humans are the real monsters' in your face pretty much from the get go. Searing social satire with monsters and plenty of memorable imagery, catch this one if you can. 

THE SLEEP CURSE (2017)

        Opens with camcorder footage of a man slowly losing the ability to sleep, with audience-pleasing gory results. Then we're introduced to insomnia researcher (and potential mad scientist - he's depriving white mice of sleep after all & that's never a good sign in a movie like this) Dr Lam Sik-Ka (Anthony Chau-Sang Wong). When his research funding falls through he's approached by the daughter of the man from the opening scene. She has a huge cheque and the concern she may go the way of her father. In a (too) lengthy flashback sequence, we learn of the curse that has led to what is happening. 
        THE SLEEP CURSE does manage to go deliciously crazy at its climax, and if you fancy some uncomfortable taboo-busting gore then it's probably worth the wait. Otherwise THE SLEEP CURSE is just a bit too drawn out, with too little of the running time spent on the 'modern day' (it's set in 1990) plotline.

BETTER WATCH OUT (2017)

        Loved it at Frightfest. Loved it again on a second watch here. Best watched knowing nothing about it so I won't say any more, except that this is getting a UK cinema release at Christmas. Go and see it.

HOUSEWIFE (2017)

        Absolutely the highlight of Abertoir so far for me. Can Evrenol was responsible for nightmarish horror BASKIN (2015) and HOUSEWIFE is better. If you loved the delirious weirdness of Argento's SUSPIRIA & INFERNO and Fulci's THE BEYOND then you'll get a kick out of this as well. The deliberately 'rubber reality' plot line is graced by some terrific visual compositions and a healthy dose of disturbing imagery, culminating in a final scene that's pleasingly Lovecraftian. But is any of it real, or is it all in the central character's head as she tries to justify and explain to herself the appalling act we see before the opening titles? As with all the best art house horrors, it's entirely up to you. I can't wait to watch this one again. 

Abertoir Highlights Day 5

A talk by all-round exploitation expert Stephen Thrower on Lucio Fulci and free hot dogs were among the things on the menu today. Here are the films:

THE UNSEEN

An original, working class, and very modern take on the idea of invisibility as disease. In the grimmest of grim logging towns in Canada, a man travels home to reconnect with his troubled daughter. There's the suggestion of mental illness in the family, but that's not nearly as dramatic as what's actually going on. THE UNSEEN is so slow those with less stamina may well give up on it after half an hour, but it's worth sticking with because by the end it's actually rather clever.

I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER

 

He's not, you know! Or is he? To find out exactly why that's such a very good title for this one you'll have to watch the film. Young John Wayne Cleaver is worried he is a psychopath. Meanwhile someone is killing the inhabitants of the small north American town where he lives. I can't say much more than that or I'll be spoiling some neat surprises. This new feature from ISOLATION director Billy O'Brien is just as quirky and worth watching at least twice.

THE BEYOND

With live score performed by Fabio Frizzi and his band! A European premiere and quite fabulous. Frizzi had rewritten and rearranged the music so there was lots more of it in this, a performance that was as much about the music as it was the movie. Encores included music from Lamberto Bava's BLASTFIGHTER and DEVOURING WAVES. If anyone had told the much younger me that one day I would be sitting in a packed auditorium listening to a live performance of any of this I would have said there was about as much chance of that as there being a horror film festival in Aberystwyth,

Abertoir Highlights Day 4

The day kicked off with a retrospective screening of Lucio Fulci's SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK, then it was onto the new stuff! Here we go:

DEADMAN INFERNO: TOKYO YAKUZA APOCALYPSE

An Abertoir exclusive! DEADMAN INFERNO deservedly won the audience's 'Best Film' award at last year's Abertoir. This was a bit of a curiosity - an hour-long 'prequel' to the events in that Yakuza Vs Zombies picture. Because it's a prequel it features plenty of yakuza antics but no zombies. It was still extremely entertaining and came with subtitles specially translated for Abertoir by co-organiser Gaz Bailey's wife!

FANTASTICOZZI

This hour-long documentary on the life and career of movie director Luigi Cozzi (STARCRASH, CONTAMINATION) was an affectionate look at a film-maker who, as well as having had his own career, has been intimately involved in that of Dario Argento's as well.

BLOOD ON MELIES' MOON

Luigi Cozzi's first fiction movie in 27 years is an absolute delight. Cozzi himself is the star as he gets embroiled in a hugely ambitious plot about parallel universes, the entire history of film and science fiction, and the earth in mortal peril. Shot for 1000 Euros and taking two years to make, there's a bit of a home made feel to it, but that should by no means stop you from checking this out. A serious contender for my favourite film of Abertoir 2016


TALES OF H P LOVECRAFT

A live performance in which Laurence R Harvey read the short H P Lovecraft tales FROM BEYOND and THE HOUND while Lancashire-based The Duke St Workshop provided musical accompaniment with some pleasingly retro-sounding bubbling synthesised music influenced by plenty of great movie composers including Morricone, Stelvio Cipriani and Lalo Schifrin (according to the quick word I had with them afterwards). Fans of Les Baxter's early synth work for THE DUNWICH HORROR would have spotted some similar sounds as well.

RAW

A very French look at cannibalism that could easily have the word 'Metaphor' burned into the corner of every frame, this tale of a pretty young vegetarian girl starting veterinary college and finding she has a taste for human flesh is probably going to divide audiences. Lots of people love it, I have to say I found a lot of what was portrayed faintly ridiculous, and not in a good way. It's possible it's intended to be taken a great deal more light-heartedly than I viewed it, but the words 'French-Belgian Coproduction' and 'Comedy Horror' have never been easy bedfellows.

SADAKO VS KAYAKO

See that poster up there? This film's nowhere near as good as that. It's about par for the course in a kind of tired Part VII of a franchise kind of way, though. There's a bit of humour in the first act, and a fun bit with a medium and her helpers twisting their own heads off, but the promised smackdown climax isn't very smacky and doesn't last very long, either. One for franchise completists and the very curious only.

Abertoir Highlights Day 3

This year's traditional Abertoir off-site screening (which ended up back onsite after 92mph gales put an end to any ideas of showing a film anywhere other than inside a reinforced concrete bunker) was John Carpenter's THE FOG, which I decided to miss because I'd seen it on the big screen earlier this year during the Bristol Watershed's Carpenter retrospective. Other highlights of the day included Gavin Baddeley's talk on Sin Cities (which Mrs Probert and I attended) and the midnight premiere of KARATE KILL (which we didn't, the option of getting a good night's sleep before tomorrow's marathon being preferable). Which leaves these, the movie highlights of Abertoir Day 3:

DEAREST SISTER

A film from Laos that gave us plenty of background on Laotian culture and a woman's place in it. Unfortunately it's also staggeringly slow and has precious little to really warrant calling it a horror film. Twenty-something Nok gets sent by her family to look after the similarly-aged Ana in the big city. Ana is losing her eyesight, has an incompetent Estonian husband (which is where I think half the budget for this one came from, with some of the rest from a Laotian brewery) and can (possibly) see the spirits of the dead every now and then who give her lottery numbers. I'm not sure why. Nok uses the lottery numbers to buy a nice phone and a hairstyle. The servants in the house are not very nice. Nothing much happens for long periods. Then very close to the end something does. A bit. DEAREST SISTER will probably do well on the art cinema circuit but I think it will be a mistake if they market it as a horror film. As such I can't honestly recommend this one.


CREEPY

This was much more like it. The latest film from KAIRO and JOURNEY TO THE SHORE director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. CREEPY isn't like either of those, but it would be spoiling it if I told you much about it. Suffice to say the film is all about identity, and manages a terrific atmosphere of insidious building dread as the movie progresses. It's getting a limited cinema release from Eureka from next week and will be turning up on Blu-ray after that. I may even give the disc a fuller write up on here then.

I DRINK YOUR BLOOD

David Durston's rabid hippy zombie picture shown as part of the Abertoir retrospective strand. I've reviewed this one before so if you fancy reading my thoughts on it click here.

Abertoir Highlights Day Two

So THE FLY (1959) looked great on the big screen, as did SHIVERS, and Abertoir special guest Lynn Lowry both looked great and was a fabulous interviewee, talking about her roles in I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, THE CRAZIES & SHIVERS. Arrow Films will be bringing out George A Romero's THE CRAZIES on Blu-ray and the interview was recorded to be included on the disc.
There was only one new movie during our exhausting eleven hour day, but it was a goodie:

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE

Yes it's from the director of TROLL HUNTER and no, it's nothing like it but I suppose they have to put it on the posters. In Virginia, the investigation of a suspected multiple homicide at a family home uncovers the body of an unidentified young woman buried in the basement. She's taken to Brian Cox's mortuary for an autopsy where, as each incision is made and each organ is taken apart, he and his son (played by Emile Hirsch) find things becoming very odd indeed. Not fair to tell you anything else but this is great - virtually a two hander in a single location, making it feel like a TWILIGHT ZONE or Amicus episode but not in the least bit padded out. Filmed in the UK, not that you would ever have guessed it, and out on general release next year. Catch it when it is.

No other new pictures to review today so instead I'm going to post a picture of one of the many endearing traditions of Abertoir - the themed cocktail. Last year we had the Matool (for ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS), the Butch (for THEATRE OF BLOOD) and the Mad Monk (for Hammer's Rasputin). Needles to say Mrs Probert and I have tried all of these today: 

There was also the (infamous) pub quiz and a midnight showing of Lucio Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER, which I like enough that I had seen it sufficient times already. Bed beckoned once more...

Abertoir Highlights Day 1

It's time for Abertoir, the annual festival of all things horror film related that takes place at Aberystwyth Arts Centre during the appropriately gloomy month of November. Two things have made me decide that the festival deserves coverage here - one being that it seems a little unfair to only cover London and Glasgow Frightfest events when there's so much else going on throughout the UK. The second is that Mrs Probert & I attended Abertoir for the first time last year and it was such a great event, everyone was so friendly, and the selection of films shown was so good that it would be doing everyone a massive disservice for House of Mortal Cinema not to cover this year's festival. Here, then, is the first of my reports from the rain-lashed, mist-cloaked, isolated place in Wales that, for one glorious week in November, is the best place for any horror fan to be.

Carry on Screaming

Abertoir prides itself on having two main movie strands. As well as brand new horror pictures there's the chance to see some much-loved classics on the big screen. And they don't come much more loved than this, a movie from a golden period of British film-making, when both Hammer Films and the Carry Ons were at their peak. Director Gerald Thomas, and screenwriter Talbot Rothwell, along with the usual cast (and Harry H Corbett standing in for Sid James who was persona non grata for this one apparently) expertly carry off the difficult job of spoofing Hammer and Universal, while still making something that's uniquely their own. Some of the jokes are understandably dated now - there probably aren't too many of us who will appreciate composer Eric Rogers' skill at incorporating the theme for Z CARS into his bouncy police theme - but it's still lots of knockabout, silly fun, best watched in an atmosphere just like this. Frying tonight!!!!!

The Inerasable

Ghost story upon ghost story upon ghost story in this Japanese film that presents us with strange occurrences in a building that (surprise surprise) is all due to Something Terrible That Happened In The Past. Rather dry opening and middle acts  pile backstory upon backstory to the point of everything becoming so convoluted I was hoping this was going to present us with a clever spin on the usual Japanese ghost movie cliches but sadly not. I think everyone else in the room liked this more than I did so please bear that in mind when reading this, as well as the fact that when it comes to movie scares I often prefer a sledgehammer to a flickering a candle flame.

The Void

...and here comes the sledgehammer. Directors Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie are part of Astron 6 (MANBORG, THE EDITOR and other genre delights) and here they give us a feature length horror about a hospital besieged by cultists as mutants attack, weird pregnancies abound and something very strange indeed is going on in the basement that is causing reality to fracture (I think). The storytelling is all a bit confusing & I couldn’t quite tell if that was deliberate or not. The concept and visuals, however, are things of the best monstrous scary nightmares, less Lovecraft inspired and more Clark Ashton Smith. In fact by the end of this one I felt sufficiently weirded out that I didn’t want to go to bed and that in itself means THE VOID deserves praise. When reading this review bear in mind that grotesque mutant former human blob things from other dimensions scare me a lot more than creeping shadows & I am not ashamed of that.

MANIAC

A midnight showing of William Lustig's 1980 sleazy slasher or bed. Bed won.